This morning Justice Alito entered an administrative stay (two actually) of the order of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit halting the Food and Drug Administration regulation allowing for the prescription of mifepristone via telemedicine. Mifepristone (aka RU-486) is used in combination with misoprostol as an abortifacient. The stays are in response to applications filed by mifepristone's manufacturers, which I discussed here.
Both orders--one in response to the application from Danco Laboratories, the other in response to GenBioPro--are identical. They are fairly pro forma, and indicate little about what the Court may ultimately do. They each stay the Fifth Circuit's order until 5pm on May 11 and request a response to the applications by May 7. Note that the ordered response will come from the plaintiffs (Louisiana, et al.). The stays do not explicitly request a response from the Trump Administration.
As I noted yesterday, the Trump Administration's position on the significance of the stay of the 2023 FDA regulation would likely influence the Court's consideration of the manufacturers' petitions. Even if a majority of justices agree with me that the bases upon which the Fifth Circuit entered the stay are questionable, both in regard to Article III standing and the merits, the Court is less likely to block the Fifth Circuit's order if the federal government does not ask it to.
